


Suspension

by sssammich



Series: Sidelines (Tobin's POV) [2]
Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Angst, Complete, F/F, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sssammich/pseuds/sssammich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tobin’s still in love, but she’s not the only one who knows about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suspension

**Author's Note:**

> This is a response fic to Evershadow's response fic, "The Space Between" (which is a response fic to my "Sidelines" fic). 
> 
>  I'm sorry that was confusing.

She’s used to pain.

Her lungs have burned wishing for oxygen that can’t come soon enough; her legs have felt like jelly underneath her, each step forward a struggle not to collapse; cuts, scrapes, and bruises have marred her skin, half of which she has stories for and the other half remaining a mystery. All of this pain comes with the territory of playing a contact sport.

But she can’t get used to the pain that rumbles in her chest whenever Alex is around, whenever Alex is somewhere else, whenever Alex just…is.

Scars fade on her skin, her muscles regain strength, and broken bones mend. Physical pain is something she can overcome.

But a constantly aching heart? She’s not sure if she can overcome that.

*

The party at Megan’s apartment doesn’t feel any different from their crazy shenanigans during practice or on the road. But instead of participating in the jokes and the goofing around, she sits out and appreciates the show in front of her, Megan and Lori performing an impromptu dance sequence they’d learned from one of those Just Dance games.

A little short of breath, Megan takes the spot beside her.

“What’s up, girl? Where was that standing ovation we clearly deserved from you?”

With an easy smile, she sets her drink down and stands up, clapping enthusiastically. She ends it with bowing down before taking her seat back.

“So how are things?”

She chuckles a little. “You saw me at practice yesterday.”

Megan shrugs. “Yeah, but the last time we really talked or anything was not yesterday. So what’s up in your life?”

She looks around and finds the back of Alex’s head across the room. “It’s fine.”

“That’s boring.”

“Soccer, church, and food. That’s my life.” Megan doesn’t push her for anything else, just stays by her side on the couch. Megan dances in place beside her with raised hands when Lori and Abby catch her attention.

After some time, she turns to her teammate.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Megan doesn’t hesitate and faces her. “Shoot.”

If she doesn’t ask now, she’ll lose her nerve. So she blurts out the words. “I’ve liked guys that have never liked me back, but how does-how does it feel to like a girl and know that they can’t ever like you back because they’re not gay?”

“How does it feel to fall for a straight girl? Is that what you’re asking me?”

She feels small and stupid when she hears her question come out of her friend’s mouth.

“Yeah, but like what if the straight girl is your best friend? How does that work out for you?”

Megan laughs a little before putting a hand on her shoulder. “It’s a little different, I think. Because if you don’t like a guy or a guy doesn’t like you, sure you may not get together, but there’s like a one percent chance that that could change and you could. People’s interests change and all that.”

She nods, clinging on to every word.

“But when a gay person falls for a straight person, there’s already no way of getting together, but your chances of ever getting together gets to, like, zero. People’s sexual orientations don’t really change. And then if you end up falling for a straight best friend, then it’s just really messy. Just about every gay person I know has gone through it, though. It’s like a pre-req for us.”

“Oh. Thanks,” she says, not knowing what else to say. She thinks messy is an understatement for the situation she’s found herself in, but keeps that to herself.

Megan tilts her head a little and looks at her curiously. She shifts her attention elsewhere. “Sure thing. Anyway, you want another drink?”

She nods once and lets Megan take her empty cup. She looks around the room and she turns away when she sees Alex looking at her.

*

Alex is getting closer to her hiding spot and she’s uncertain if she can hold off much longer. It’s only a matter of time before things fall apart like she’d always feared it would. Her best friend keeps looking at her as if keeping her under scrutiny would unravel her heart’s most held secret, her heart’s most held guilt.

She loses her composure when Alex pulls her to the side after practice one day and demands that she tells her what’s wrong because something’s definitely wrong.

“Nothing. Just a lot on my mind.”

“Then why don’t you tell me? I mean, jeez, we’re best friends!” Alex puts her hand up to the locker, blocking her path. She clenches her jaw and resists pushing Alex’s arm down.

“Yeah. But this isn’t something that concerns you, so can I just please go through?” She wants to be reasonable. She wants to disappear.

“Doesn’t it?”

“W-what?”

Alex takes a deep breath and removes her arm from the locker and places it on her arm. Her hand is warm but it scalds her skin. Alex’s next words set her entire body ablaze.

“Tobin, I know.”

Her breath hitches in her throat and if she swallows her pride now, she’s certain she’s going to choke. Alex is staring at her, honest as she’s always been, and waits. The words have always been just under her tongue from days when she’d foolishly thought she could reveal herself. She could say yes and nod, before turning her head away and admit it all. Her feelings have always been stuffed in her back pocket and all she ever needed was to reach for them.

But when the very object of her affection confronts her about them, she locks herself up completely.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I gotta go,” she spits out, anger rising. It’s a belated reaction – and they both know it – but she pulls her arm away and pushes forward, bag slung on her shoulder. Alex’s reaction rips her in half because the hurt on such a beautiful face is enough for her to slump to her knees and seek forgiveness. But the other half, the defiant one, forces her to keep walking despite what she’s caused (what’s she’s caused the both of them). She doesn’t dare turn around when she’s shoving the door open, thankful that Alex doesn’t stop her.

It’s only when she reaches outside of the building does she gasp a lungful of air to keep from falling apart.  

*

She gets suckered into going out with some of her teammates downtown. She didn’t want to; her main interests for the last couple of days when Alex confronted her had been to hide and hide. But her roommate and friends finally cornered her and she didn’t have the energy to fight them.

When her friends huddle by the club’s main entrance, she’d never thought she would wish for Servando to be around than now when Alex steps out of the taxi with Abby and Sarah. Panic sets in and she rushes to lead her friends inside; she doesn’t care if her panic for escape gets misread as an eagerness to party. She just wants to get away.

She chances a quick glance behind her but all she sees is Alex’s back turned to her. She hastens in her steps to get inside and lose herself in the crowd.

*

She plays along with her friends’ whims and dances along with them, having fun on the dance floor. But she doesn’t drop her guard and does her best to avoid anybody who bears any resemblance to Alex. She ducks her head down and shimmies her body away as much as she can. She has to, she has no choice but to keep running.

So concentrated on policing her surroundings, she doesn’t notice that she’s bumped into some brunette behind her and spilling her drink.

“Crap. I’m so sorry, I didn’t-I didn’t mean to do that. Let me buy you another drink or something,” she offers, leaning towards the woman so she could be heard.

“That’s okay, it wasn’t good anyway.” The woman laughs and she laughs along. She doesn’t get too long a look at the woman due to the constant shift in the lighting, but she doesn’t let it bother her.

She surprises herself when she readies to introduce herself, but her spontaneous bravery halts when she sees Alex only a few yards away looking at her.

“Sorry, I gotta go. Sorry about your drink.” She shoves herself through the dancing bodies around her, the woman with the spilled drink forgotten.

She leans on an expanse of wall free of patrons tucked away in the corner. She rubs the stress out of her eyes taking one, two, three deep breaths before turning around. She wishes she hadn’t.

“You’re avoiding me,” Alex tells her, stepping into her personal space, her face only inches from hers.

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re avoiding me.” She can smell alcohol in Alex’s breath and she realizes that this can’t end well, not like this.

“Alex, let’s not do this right now, okay? You’ve been drinking and-”

Her words get stuck in her mouth when Alex propels herself forward and presses their lips together and locks them there, her arms pulling her close. Her instinctual fight or flight responses kick in and she shoves Alex away from her, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. This isn’t how this is supposed to go.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Alex pushes her back to the wall, their chests pressed up together. She scans around for an escape, but she doesn’t find any when Alex’s arms block her on either side. She can see Kelley and Megan somewhere behind Alex, but her attention is pulled back when Alex starts to speak.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?! Didn’t you want me?! Well I’m letting you have me so I can have my best friend back.”

It’s comical how stupidly her jaw drops when she hears those words. They taunt her and she struggles to move her head to avoid Alex.

Her friends step in and grab hold of Alex, but her best friend pushes forward one last time, her voice considerably softer, considerably more pained. 

“Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”

The tears prick at her eyes, the crowdedness of the room closes in on her. Kelley’s by her side, a protective hand in front of her. She pushes it away and dashes to the exit, not knowing what else to do. Just like days before, she pushes out of the doors seeking for air. She follows when Kelley leads her to the side.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says before falling in a fit of sobs as she angrily wipes her lips away of any traces that Alex had ever been there. 

*

She doesn’t get a chance to sleep that night; her body too fraught with her nerves. Kelley, ever the loyal roommate, stays by her side on the couch as she sits without moving having already changed into a t-shirt and shorts. She wanted to get as far away from Alex as possible.

The tears she’d anticipated to wrack through her doesn’t show up. So when 4 AM comes and goes, she forces her roommate to go to sleep after struggling to stay awake. Kelley hesitates, but she offers her friend a playful push.

The sunlight filters into the living room and she’s barely moved from her spot. Neither sleep nor tears comes, just cramped muscles and a once heavy heart even heavier.

She scribbles a note for Kelley to find when she wakes up later before heading out with just her keys. No wallet, no phone.

*

She sits through all of the services perched up in the balcony, completely isolated from the rest of the congregation. The custodian she talked to about sitting alone in the balcony had looked at her strangely, but her raggedy appearance may have compelled him to let her. She’ll take any of the pity that comes her way.

When she looks down at the empty church and at the altar, much the same way she did months ago, she wants to scream and yell, letting her frustration and heartache echo into the whole place. She doesn’t, though, she just slumps back into her seat and accepts this distance from the altar as the distance she feels from her faith.

She hasn’t just abandoned her friendship with Alex, but she’s also abandoned her faith. And now, she feels like she has neither. She ignores the pangs of hunger in her stomach, using it as a form of penance for herself. She covers her face with her hands and wonders when she got so lost, when she realized she was battling things she couldn’t win against, however much she tried. The tears are slow to come, but she lets them be.

The rustling behind her snaps her back to reality. Wiping away at her face with her sleeve, she barely manages out an apology. “I didn’t mean to stay so long. I’ll leave in a minute.”

“Tobin.”

She freezes in place, her heart attempting to beat out of her chest. Her eyes are trained on the crucifix at the altar. She doesn’t turn around, she’s not sure she can do it.

Alex doesn’t wait for her to do anything; she takes the spot beside her. Neither of them says a word. Her first instinct is to bolt. But she stamps down the flight response in her system even if the fight in her is weak.

Alex clears her throat, her hands on her thighs. “I-I’m sorry about coming onto you like that last night.”

Her vision blurs with tears when she thinks about their situation. Her straight best friend is apologizing to her because of feelings she couldn’t control. She presses a hand on her mouth to stop herself from sobbing aloud.

“I just want my best friend back. She hasn’t been the same for months and I just want her back.” Alex’s voice cracks and it breaks her apart, piece by piece.

She can’t fight the sobs and she hides her head in her hands, her wailing only muffled by her palms. She feels arms wrap around her. She buries herself in Alex’s embrace and cries on her chest. Amidst the sobs, all she can do is apologize, from the bottom of her selfish, foolish heart.

*

“How do you stop being in love with your straight best friend?” she asks after some time have elapsed from her outburst. They’re sitting beside each other, Alex’s hand in hers. She affords herself this moment since she doesn’t think it’ll come for a while. She glances at her friend.

Alex shrugs, almost in a daze. “I don’t know. But whatever you need to do, I’ll support you.”

She squeezes back when Alex tightens her hold.

“I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“It’s okay. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t feel the same way.”

“If only I’d been a man, right?” she says with a laugh, but she can’t quite shake the bitterness out of it.

“But you’re a woman, and a great one. And you deserve someone, man or woman, who can love you like you deserve. I’m just not that person.”

“Yeah,” she says with a mournful sigh, her head hanging low. Alex brings her face up with her free hand. She doesn’t do anything when Alex’s face inches closer and closer, her eyes fluttering shut, before she places a soft, chaste kiss on her lips. She follows suit. 

It’s gone as quickly as it appeared. 

“To replace the bad one I gave you yesterday,” Alex offers softly when she pulls away. She’s afraid to open her eyes, but she does so anyway. It’s not the kind of kiss she’s dreamt she’d receive from her best friend. She doesn’t know how to categorize it, but she knows that it’s the last one she’ll ever get. And that’s okay; it has to be.

She offers a small smile. “Thanks.”

Alex leans back, their hands still together, and they stare down at the altar.

*

She squints when she walks out of the church, Alex beside her. 

“Do you want a lift home?”

She shakes her head. “I’m gonna go for a run first.”

Alex looks at her, brows knitted. “Are you sure?” She nods. Alex pulls her in a tight hug and she revels in it, instantly wraps her arms around her and clutches at the fabric. Alex lets go and she does, too.

“Are we gonna be okay?” Alex asks.

“Yeah. We have to be.” She stands in front of the church as Alex waves goodbye and walks away. She waves again when Alex drives past her in the direction of home.

She takes off running in the opposite direction as fast as her legs will take her. And she doesn’t look back.

*

It’s only when she stopped, gasping for air, and leaning on the stop sign – as if she’s been shot, and it may as well feel like it - that her body reminds her that it has its limits and it reached that point half a mile ago. She doesn’t remember for how long she’s been running, but she thinks it’s at least been over an hour.

The tears are threatening to spill again, so she lets herself have this moment. The moment doesn’t come and she’s left with tears that only gloss her eyes. She doesn’t know where she is. With her recent track record, she’s not surprised. She doesn’t even remember which road she turned in after reaching the stop sign. So she sits on the curb and stares at the picket fence across the street to some astonishingly expensive house.

After some time, when her breathing has evened, the hunger punches her harder in the stomach, and her muscles remind her of the torture she’d forced them to endure, a truck stops in front of her. She realizes it’s the first car she’s seen anywhere.

The truck doesn’t move from its spot, so she looks up to find a redheaded woman peering over the passenger seat just staring at her with the window down. She doesn’t say a word.

The woman exits out of the truck and observes her as if she’s some wild animal coming out of the woodwork. She wonders if this woman, someone who can’t be any older than she is, can tell what kind of hell she’s just gone through in the last couple of days.

But all the stranger asks is if she’s who she is. She offers a curt nod, still not moving from her spot.

She accepts the offered ride when she remembers that she doesn’t have her phone or her wallet with her. She would have declined the offer if it was any other time, but it wasn’t any other time, so she took a chance. The woman – her name’s Mary-Kate – doesn’t seem to mind that she’s not so talkative or so forthcoming with conversation. So she lets this stranger fill the noise between them like they’ve done this all before; she listens to Mary-Kate talk about her younger sister, Jasmine, who’s apparently one of her biggest fans.

As she’s signing a Chinese takeout menu for Jasmine, she snaps her head when she hears Mary-Kate talk about an ex-girlfriend who could have gotten an autograph if they hadn’t ended in bad terms. She hadn’t been paying much attention to this person, not really, but now she’s just finding that she’s stealing glances at her.

Mary-Kate’s got bright red hair, like a fire truck, and pale skin, freckles littering her skin. She’s shorter than her and her voice is a lot higher. She’s also had an ex-girlfriend. She’s about as different from Alex as she can conjure up at this point.

She doesn’t know what it means, if it even means anything, but she’ll take this sign from God.

*

She gets dropped off at a gas station just a couple of minutes from her apartment. Mary-Kate doesn’t seem to mind that, either. She finds herself more and more thankful for this God-send appearance from this stranger. She doubts that she’ll ever see her again, but she’ll commit her to memory as best she could, just in case their paths ever crossed again.

She moves to the side and watches as the truck passes her, one last wave from Mary-Kate, until all she sees are two red dots from a distance.

When she pushes her apartment door open, she sees Kelley get up from her spot and rush over to her.

“Holy shit, where have you been?!” Kelley asks pulling her into a bone-crushing hug before breaking away and punching her in the arm.

“Ow!” she exclaims, holding onto her arm. “I went running! And then I got too tired so I just walked.” She knows it’s a lie but she doesn’t have the energy to explain herself. 

“Good god, I was five minutes away from calling a search party.”

“Sorry. I was just walking but I lost track of time.”

She makes her way to her room to prep for a long, hot shower when Kelley stops her.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She shrugs, but there’s almost a resigned smile on her face. She doesn’t wait for her roommate to ask any more questions, just walks into her room and walks out with a towel. She can feel Kelley still watching her, watching to see if she’ll break down at any point in her trek to the bathroom.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. But I haven’t eaten all day.”

“There’s pizza on the stove.”

“Sweet. Thanks.”

Kelley nods and goes back to some book she’s reading on the couch. She knows that Kelley is still eyeing her spot, scrutinizing her movements to see if any of this is false bravery. She lets Kelley do her job as her friend.

She gets the entire bathroom fogged up with the steam, the hot water beating down on her exposed back burning her outside in.

*

Nothing has ever broken her like time and distance.

She’d been too close (mind, body, and spirit) for too much time (mornings, nights and everything in between) with Alex and it had proved too caustic for her.

So she prays that time and distance will fix her broken pieces.

She pulls away, as much as she can, from Alex. She spends the following month after the incident at church rekindling old friendships with people outside of the tiny bubble she’d created for herself. She calls her family up and hangs out with them, revitalizing herself with their unconditional love. She joins in on some of Megan and Lori’s adventures acting foolishly and having a good time. She reads their surfing magazines beside Kelley as she reads her books, marathon episodes of River Monsters playing as background noise from their television. She contributed to the team like nothing ever happened to her, but she refrained from reaching for Alex every time the team celebrated a goal.

She never once told Alex that she’s going to separate herself, but it’s the most logical step, so she believes that’s what Alex is doing. For most of the month, the texts she gets are mass messages about practice or a game. She doesn’t know what Alex is doing most of the time, not anymore. It liberates her from anguishing over knowing Alex’s schedule and wishing she was there.

She’s doing her best and she knows that a few weeks is not going to solve their problems. But she’ll take what she can get and pray that things will work itself out. All she has is her faith that things will go back to a time before she’d hurt the two of them.

The first day was torture. Having exhausted herself physically and forgetting to eat, having cried herself out of tears, and having surrendered herself to the guilt, her body had taken a beating. But she just tried to push through as best as she could, and promised herself that each day would hurt less. It had to because she vowed those weeks ago when Alex had asked her if they were going to be okay that they would be.

She just needs more time, more distance.

*

She turns Abby’s invite down to go club hopping with some of the other girls after her older teammate stopped by to drop off some extra equipment.

“Are you sure that you don’t wanna come join us? You haven’t gone out in a while, we wouldn’t want the night life to miss you,” she jokes.

She smiles, one that she can believe reaches her eyes, but shakes her head. “Kelley and I just started Swamp People and we’re hooked. But next time, I promise.”

Abby reciprocates the smile. She doesn’t say anything, like she’s thinking about something else, before tapping her on the arm. “Okay, next time. We’ll hold you to it.” With one last wave, Abby disappears behind the door and she takes her spot back on the couch.

“You ready to watch the season finale?” Kelley asks, passing her a bowl of popcorn. She grins and takes a handful of popcorn from the bowl.

“Let’s do it.”

*

As promised, she agrees to go out with Abby and some of the other girls. Her skin is buzzing, anxious. She’d declined on the other invites because she knew Alex would be there. When she realizes that she’s not looking around to find her best friend, she considers it a victory. She’ll take as many of those as she can get.

She’s surprised to hear her voice considering the volume of the music in the club, but she turns around, despite herself and sees Alex walking towards their table, Servando trailing behind. Her first instinct is to run, but she did that and she crashed, so she stays put.

Alex is no more than a foot in front of her. “Nice hat.” She watches Alex’s arm start to reach up but stops and falls back when they realize what she’s about to do.

She offers a small smile. “Thanks.”

They don’t have time for conversation when Kelley and Sydney appear from behind them and pulls her to the dance floor. Kelley winks at her before beelining for the middle of the crowd.

Just as she’s dancing around her friends, she bumps into someone, spilling their drink. When she turns to face the victim of her clumsiness, she recognizes the woman. It’s the same one she bumped into the last time she was here.

“Oh crap,” she says. “I’m so sorry. Again.”

“Now you’re just doing it on purpose,” the woman commented, wiping away the spill from herself. 

“Let me buy you another one.” The woman accepts her offer and she quickly lets Kelley know where she’s headed before following the woman towards the bar.

As they wait for their ordered drinks, she extends her hand. “Tobin.”

The woman takes her hand and offers a firm handshake. “I know who you are. Sean.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, meaning it.

She invites Sean to the area with her friends, their half-consumed drinks in their hands. As the bubbling laughter dies down from watching her friends and Sean create their little dance circle, she catches a glimpse of Alex sitting close beside Servando at a table with some of their friends.

Alex looks up and offers her a small smile. She brings her drink up before looking away and focusing her attention at the people in front of her.

“Party in the USA” starts to blare from the speakers and her friends excitedly start dancing to it, singing along to the words. Instead of searching to see where Alex is, she turns her whole body so her back is facing the tables. She starts inching forward, bit by bit, as each beat blasts from the speakers and she’s dancing like her heart hadn’t weighed so much not too long ago, letting time and distance heal her.


End file.
